You’d think that in a small town with two four-year colleges the last thing you’d have to worry about is your movie-watching options shrinking. Not so, apparently. This fall our (admittedly dingy and icky) movie theater closed. This month our movie rental place closed. I assume Netflix and things like bittorrent are to blame, and I blame them heartily. This seriously cramps my entertainment style.

Sure, I could subscribe to Netflix, and I probably will, now. The problem is that I go for weeks and weeks without watching a single movie, and then I hit one of those weekends where all I want is to achieve a state in which my brain doesn’t have to function at all for an extended period of time. On these weekends,I rent a huge pile of movies and watch them all, regardless of quality. Netflix doesn’t seem to accommodate such binge watching very well (at least, not until faster DSL connection speeds are available in my area), and the public library isn’t open late enough on Fridays for me to realize that this will be one of those weekends and get myself over there after work. Also, I’ve seen most of their holdings.

So here I sit, Netflixed out of my passive entertainment habits. I guess that means it’s time to develop new habits.

Interlibrary Loan isn’t a very good option for movies as there are many places that won’t lend them (there are always exceptions, but…) I use Netflix and like them because they tend to offer more options and variety than a straight video rental place.

Yeah, ILL isn’t really a good option, not only because it doesn’t often work, but also because the main ingredient in my binge-watching is that it’s spur-of-the-moment. I’ll leave work on a Friday and think, “Wow. I’m dead to the world. I think I’ll rent 5 or 6 movies and watch them all.”

And my library’s collection is really very good, but somehow it’s never become part of my habit. It’s hard to browse because it’s a closed collection packed into compact shelving, so I’d really have to know what I wanted to watch before going in there. Still, I might have to learn to make that work for me.

Have you tried redbox? $1 movies, kiosks usually located at a grocery or drug store with hours later than the public library. I find it a nice complement to Netflix when I’ve rented an obscure indie film, but just want to watch a blockbuster. :)

I looked at the streaming option, Chris, but I’m a little worried I don’t have the connection speed it wants. 1.5Mbps is the highest I can get (and most of the time the actual connection speed is more like 1Mbps), and that’s the bare minimum for Netflix. They’d prefer I have 3Mbps, which isn’t even available in my area.

But I guess I could just give it a try, and if it doesn’t work out I could cancel my subscription.